Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and officials from nine other cities, from Uniontown to Allentown, will spend the next two months trying to craft a statewide solution to pension problems that are undermining their budgets.

After a June meeting of the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities, they will take their proposed solutions to Harrisburg.

"Our goal is to figure out an action plan, moving forward, and try to make, slowly but surely, changes to the pension system that will affect positively Pittsburgh and cities throughout the commonwealth," Mr. Ravenstahl said yesterday, in a break from a day-long mayoral summit at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The officials talked about a number of potential solutions, including creating a statewide pension fund which municipalities could opt into so they don't each have to manage one or more funds.

That would take pensions "out of the negotiating process" with municipal unions, said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. "It would take it out of the political forum."

Officials from Erie, Scranton, Allentown, Uniontown, Duquesne, McKeesport, Johnstown, New Castle and Washington, Pa., attended the summit.

At the end of March, Pittsburgh's pension fund held $374 million, which is less than half of the $843 million it needs to cover future obligations. That gap forces the city to put $41.5 million into the fund this year, or one-tenth of its budget, and that amount is expected to rise.

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, said the state's 3,000 municipal pension funds contain $16 billion, which is $5 billion less than they should have to cover future obligations. He said he and state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, would co-chair a legislative study of the problem.

There's no solution without state help, the mayors agreed.

"The system as it currently exists will not allow us to be successful," said Mr. Ravenstahl. "It's going to take years, and years, and years to solve this problem."